Jetlag
DVDVR 80s Project
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Everything posted by Jetlag
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Going I was expecting this to be a light hearted squash, but Sugar actually got to be fairly competitive with Kansai. Match had a little too much crowd brawling and thus felt less compact than it should have been, but Sato trying to cut Kansai down was pretty good. Kansai is far removed from her prime intensity, but still has some brutal kicks and suplexes in store. Dug the Sleeper Hold near KO and Kansai mocking Sato's attempts to attack her. This including absorbing kicks to her face and doing squats when Sato tried to work her leg. -
This was, admittedly, fairly brief and felt a bit like a prelude to a conclusion we never got to see. On the other hand, this was also absolutely brutal and classic WAR material. Araya still absolutely hate Tenryu and their interactions are gold as you expect, but you also Koshinaka not giving a damn and treating everyone like garbage. Kikuchi is a schlubby looking barefoot guy with manbreasts and he just gets murdered. Some of the stiffest shots I've seen Tenryu throw in this one and Araya remains the King fo the Moonsault as he connects one to the back of Koshinaka's head in this one. Not a high end WAR tag – it's just a little too short for that – but two crusty vets beating the bricks off of a couple young punks.
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I actually dig the hell out of this match. The constant cheapshots from Regal were awesome and the grappling was really cool to watch. With an untrained guy like Goldberg you have to do some legit moves so when Regal goes for stuff like a single leg takedown or headlock takeover he executes them with legitimacy. Goldberg also hits the most awesome arm throw. Corner palm strike + headbutt combo was epic. Best 5 minute TV match of the year?
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This was hilarious as it was basically Goldberg launching Saturn (and his friends) about the place with one beastly move after another while Saturn found some believable ways to work over Goldberg. Goldberg actually sold far more than Saturn, as Perry was pretty robotic, came back almost immediately after Goldberg hit him with something and didn't show any fire whatsoever. Goldberg's performance was a textbook example of how an unstoppable wrecking machine should have a semi competitive match against a much lesser opponent and it's no wonder he got so mad over. I mean look at all that! Last counter was insane.
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On paper this doesn't look like anything grand and these guys all could easily just go braindead and have a generic trios with some nice moments, but instead we get a STORY~! and a fun unique match layout as Ultimo Guerrero and Mr. Aguila go tooth and nail at eachother whenever they are there together. UG appears to have watched some joshi tapes as he flings Aguila about with some violent hair snapmares before hitting a snug dropkick in the ropes and later a really beautiful judo suplex. Of course everyone in this match is also an athlete in the prime of their career so there are tons of insane armdrags, bumps and dives in the match. Liked the structure a lot with the 2nd fall being especially good avoiding the obvious rudo beatdown. It ends with a huge dive train and UG and Aguila once again squaring off and this is clearly a feud people need to get into. Top tier popcorn wrestling with a brain, why would you watch anything else?
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IWA Japan continues to deliver feat. special guest Tomohiro Ishii! IWA Japan 5/18/1998 The Great Takeru vs. Perseus Keisuke Yamada & Takeshi Sato vs. Shoichi Ichinomiya & Tomohiro Ishii The Great Kabuki & Gran Hamada vs. Keizo Matsuda & Takashi Okamura Not as good as the 4/29 card, but still really fun indy action. Takeru/Perseus was the same deal as usual, hit all your big spots for pops and be done with it, but they actually seem to be gaining a bit in polish. The Ishii match was a motherfucking Ishii match, as Tomohiro Ishii – dressed in improbable 90s colors – throws down chucking chairs and kicking the lowly IWA Japan punks in their faces. All the Ishii interactions were gold as he gets the boys to show some piss and vinegar, nasty headbutt exchanges and kicks to the spine ensue. Some gritty legwork is there aswell, with using the old Jumbo kneebreaker over a table/chair and it's all great. Ichinomiya is a future comedy character and you can tell he is not very good at the pro wrestling. Funny moment where Ishii tries the spot from his future Shibata matches where he puffs his chest after getting kicked by Sato and Sato just flattens him. Atta boy! Now I need more 1998 Ishii too, god dammit. The main event was as fun as it sounds on paper, with Hamada working fun sequences and hitting big high spots, and Kabuki again in the sleaze Tenryu role. Matsuda & Okamura are quite suck ass and bland, but they do a decent job ripping up Kabuki's leg and isolating the vets hitting some double teams. Match went quite long and they kept it interesting and I would've liked to see the thing in full. Best moment of the match was easily Kabuki kicking Matsuda in the face and decking him with punches from let and right.
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I got the full match in crystal clear quality from Mike L. I think NJPW World may also have the full version. There was some enjoyable work here, particularily Ohtani's aggressively working the arm and his heelish touches. I wasn't a huge fan of the second half which people have liked a lot as there was no big payoff to the armwork and it felt close to satire at times – with Ohtani falling on his head as a „counter“ to the 2nd avalanche brainbuster etc. Folks who liked the JIP version should check out the whole thing.
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YAKUSHIJI SHOWCASE MATCH!!! This was a really indy match, like something Homicide and Amazing Red would do on an IWA-MS card. The match had 3 tornado DDT's! And 2 Malenko/Guerrero rollup exchanges! Still, despite the mindless and somewhat heatless nature of the bout it was nice to check out these two stretching out and working around their spots and doing some holds. Yakushiji comfortably outshone the shooter with more spectacular kicks and nastier submissions (dug that Cavernaria). So, lucha > resu, or something? Mighty overkill for this match, but I don't hate it so bad because they built it from the ground up starting with basic armdrags and headlock takeovers.
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This was another gem from the lucha trove. This was for the CMLL tag titles, but way scrappier than your average title match. Charles & Wagner Jr. brought the BEEF and immediately began pasting their opponents with stiff looking lariats and chops. The young hotness of Shocker & Niebla had to use their agility and wit to survive which lead to some really good sequences. They were also much sneakier than your typical vanilla technicos, as they ended up doing everything in their power to win the belts, including double teaming their opponents and interfering whenever needed. It lead to a bristling hot 3rd fall in which the crowds favour swung back and forth as the technicos took out Charles Jr. but then Wagner Jr. threw down bringing out the deadly Wagner Driver (which Dr. Morales calls a Martinete). The finish was another crazy move and a great moment. Controversial lucha at it's finest.
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The opening of this didn't do a ton for me. It's 4 workers I like a lot, doing a lot of the stuff that really annoys me about joshi tags. Random holds and transitions out the ass, too many cheap shots, pointless crowd brawling etc. After the crowd brawl this got good as they rolled out all their big moves and athletic counters. There was a particularily slick armbar sequence and the thing mentioned above by previous commentators were spectacular. The match ended up being a crowd pleasing spotfest with a vicious edge, but a good showcase for the girls. I liked the kicks from Nagashima and Kato and Uematsu has such vicious stomps and knees. Nagashima received some praise and she is someone who strikes me as being insanely talented while rarely putting it all together in a match.
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Another quality workrate trios from the CMLL crew which lacked maybe a slightly more stretched out opening to be be closer to the 4/24 trios. Still, all 3 falls were just excellent pro wrestling and it's really cool to see guys like Niebla and Aguila mix it up with the legends. This was worked technicos vs. Technicos so there is no rudo beatdown, however there is a general semblance of the greenhorns having to fight uphill against the savvy vets. For example Nieblas knee gets attacked in some pretty nasty moments, and Aguila eats a few boots to the face when getting too cute with his flying moves. Both Niebla and Aguila have some truely spectacular moves and Rivera holds up his end in a cool mat section against Santito. Some clever spots, Panther and Santito once again bust out a Doomsday Device variation in the middle of an exchange, I also loved Hijo del Santo's cheap dropkick in the 3rd fall. He also busted out his awesome diving headbutt->tope combo just to show these punks he's still the man. Also got a kick out of Blue Panther's tricky armlock getting a nice response. High quality stuff, the CMLL crew could do no wrong in 1998.
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Sneaky BattlARTS guys always sneaking into joshi cards. Obviously there were some jokes in this match with Otsuka having to defend Fukuoka from creepy Ishikawa, but most of this was straight exchanges. Ishikawa/Otsuka is an all time great matchup and every single instance is worth seeking out, this being no exception. They did the bulk of the work and had some high end exchanges. I've been watching these guys for almost 10 years now and they still surprise me with some of the stuff the bust out, for example Ishikawa hits an awesome clean deadlift suplex on Otsuka, there is a nifty judo trip and some cool triangle scissor work. The exchanges between Hyuga and Fukuoka almost felt stale in comparison. Otsuka was a total stooge eating stiff dropkicks and double stomps from Hyuga and even a stiff Rider Kick from Fukuoka in a miscommunication spot. Of course the best moment is when Ishikawa finally gets ahold of Fukuoka and the first thing he does is lock in a chokehold with glee, fuck that's creepy. Hyuga and Fukuoka do the finish and they pick up the action which was good. This was 19 minutes which is pretty long for a novelty match but the whole thing went by in a breeze.
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Cool trios match which had some matwork and for once, ended without a gazillion bajillion nearfalls. The highlight was obviously Hase working the mat against he shooter cats. Though, the goal of the match was to put the UWFi crew over strong, I thought that considering AJPW always gets praised for it's psychological brilliance, they could've done a better job. I'm not sure I by Hase easily taking down and dominating Albright on the mat. It made him look like a fat dude with nice suplexes rather than an unstoppable beast. And Kobashi was taking some really stiff knees from Takayama, but was fine a minute later. Johnny Ace was fired up but kind of threated everyone like a jobber. Ah, to nitpick forever! It was a fun match and that's what counts.
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The main event was a stupidly good sleazy WAR battle with Arashi basically walloping everyone with stiff lariats all the time and not bumping ever and crusty old Kabuki ruling it doing you know exactly what, hitting the worlds greatest punches and superkicks. Yamada basically gets the shit beaten out of him and eats the fuck out of every lariat and superkick he gets, just drilling himself into the mat with enthusiasm. Okamura is pretty blah but he and Yamada are EAGER and Kabuki is totally carrying this by bumping like a motherfucker and getting chairs chucked in his face and making me give a shit for his nerve hold AGAIN. He teases the fist drop and eats a flying lariat in a sequence that wasn't athletically impressive or anything but awesome in context of the match. I was totally a Kabuki fan before getting into IWA Japan, but seeing him crusty, old and broken down as an improbable but determined company ace who throws fists and gets spin kicked in the face is an enlightenment.
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Motokawa/Nakano was a shockingly good match, everything you can hope for from sleaze indy undercard girl wrestling. Nakano is former GAEA and a kickpadded alternate universe Satomura. She almost KO's Motokawa with her opening barrage and from then on it's on. Everything she does is either a nasty kick or a cool shoot submission. She rules, and why have I never heard of her? Motokawa likes to indulge in silly spots but straightens herself out her after getting kicked in the face 3 or 4 times and starts dropping Nakano with suplexes that would do Otsuka proud. They don't indulge in too many nearfalls and I am left thinking the world needs more of this mysterious Chiharu Nakano.
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More to come. IWA Japan in 1998 rules. IWA Japan 4/29/1998 Perseus & Hidetomo Egawa vs. The Great Takeru & Akinori Tsukioka (The spot-a-ton!) Emi Motokawa vs. Chiharu Nakano (The girl match!) The Great Kabuki & Arashi vs. Keisuke Yamada & Shigeo Okamura (The crusty main event!) I'm an IWA Japan fan now, because every IWA Japan card is great in it's own unique way which can not be expressed in conventional measures of quality, this being an outdoor show in front of a picturesque setting just being the icing on the cake. This was a nice three-piece, as you had the junior opener, which was basically all these guys throwing a slew of big moves and occasional BattlARTSian intermission touches from Egawa including hitting some huge belly to bellys which you do not expect from a tiny insignificant guy like him. Perseus (a guy the internet knows nothing about), for a guy who is all about Dragon Suplexes and Triple Powerbombs and all that also hits a really great powerslam. It's all pretty senseless and really fun. Motokawa/Nakano was a shockingly good match, everything you can hope for from sleaze indy undercard girl wrestling. Nakano is former GAEA and a kickpadded alternate universe Satomura. She almost KO's Motokawa with her opening barrage and from then on it's on. Everything she does is either a nasty kick or a cool shoot submission. She rules, and why have I never heard of her? Motokawa likes to indulge in silly spots but straightens herself out her after getting kicked in the face 3 or 4 times and starts dropping Nakano with suplexes that would do Otsuka proud. They don't indulge in too many nearfalls and I am left thinking the world needs more of this mysterious Chiharu Nakano. The main event was a stupidly good sleazy WAR battle with Arashi basically walloping everyone with stiff lariats all the time and not bumping ever and crusty old Kabuki ruling it doing you know exactly what, hitting the worlds greatest punches and superkicks. Yamada basically gets the shit beaten out of him and eats the fuck out of every lariat and superkick he gets, just drilling himself into the mat with enthusiasm. Okamura is pretty blah but he and Yamada are EAGER and Kabuki is totally carrying this by bumping like a motherfucker and getting chairs chucked in his face and making me give a shit for his nerve hold AGAIN. He teases the fist drop and eats a flying lariat in a sequence that wasn't athletically impressive or anything but awesome in context of the match. I was totally a Kabuki fan before getting into IWA Japan, but seeing him crusty, old and broken down as an improbable but determined company ace who throws fists and gets spin kicked in the face is an enlightenment.
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GAEA runs a lot of sprints, but this was the kind of match that felt like a mix between NWA Studio grappling and BattlARTS with more high flying. Very unique match where both kept stubbornly going for specific moves. Both kept trying for a suplex, Uematsu for the Northern Lights, Kato for the Dragon Suplex, and they had some cool ways to work around these moves. In between that Kato had her kicks and Uematsu a nice shotai, and Kato kept trying to choke her out. You could tell they put thought into every move they tried. That kind of singular focus was really unique and it produced a compelling match. The weak point was the finish which I thought failed to pay off what they had been building up in the previous 10 minutes, but the work was cool and interesting which is what you want from your GAEA.
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The crusty main event! Kabuki train 98 continues! Everyone in this match gets WALLOPED and it rules. Yamada & Okumura get all uppity and Nagasaki fucking wastes them both with chairs. Kabuki & Nagasaki turn into the worlds lumpiest Anderson brothers and procure some brutal armwork and stomps, with Nagasaki rocking the shoulder dislocating Armbars. It's improbable and strange and great. Kabuki hits his awesome fist drop and starts working the ARMPIT CLAW and it's fucking gross. Okumura & Yamada are not technically great but they are willing to smack the shit out of the crusty old bastards and in return get punched in the face, elbowed in the chin and kicked in the throat a LOT. Kabuki & Nagasaki actually have enough cardio to keep things moving for 15 minutes and we get a handful of great spots and thrust kicks. FEAR THE GREEN MIST! Also, SICK piledriver finish. I loved this.
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The spot-a-ton! Match contains half a dozen leg drop variants and half a dozen tope atomicos! They hit ALL the spots. Match is actually fairly competitive. Palomino, the masked Ikuto Hidaka, looks ultra polished working pseudo lucha exchanges. Tsukioka lands an Asai Moonsault into nowhere! Swank moves and dives are rolled out. An almost unrecognizable Mikami hits the neat-o Victory Roll into Kneebar because that was en vogue in 1998. Tsukioka does another insane thing which the camera misses completely! They go BROADWAY (but we will never get the full experience, because they clipped a few minutes from the bout.) This match was praised in an old DVDVR and is still fun today. Manly and whip ass etc.
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IWA Japan 7/20/1998 So IWA Japan continues to be the most watchable non-MUGA promotion in 1998. The awesomeness of IWA Japan is sorely underappreciated, so allow me to breakdown the ingredients that makes a fun indy card! The „who are these guys“ improbable fun opener! Yuji Kito & Yoshiya Yamashita vs. Turtuger & Hiroki Achiiwa. It's 4 rookie nobodies beating the shit out of eachother! Even the turtle guy is laying it in, in between jokes! The ref hits a suicide dive! Brutal elbow drops and kneedrops that land with full weight and bad intentions! Nasty boston crab finish! The tease! Cosmo Soldier vs. Hidetomo Egawa. This was 6 minutes clipped down to 2 and a half. The full match was probably an awkward botch ladden mess, and I wanted to see every second of it! Awkward attempts at shootstyle/lucharesu style experiments and cool suplexes! The utterly bizarre! Freddy Krueger vs. Katsumi Hirano. Freddy Krueger and a blonde japanese guy in a black gi hit the mat! Krueger has a noisy sleazy glamourus valet! Krueger puts the Fujiwara armbar over like a champ, while everyone is eyeballing the whip carrying lady. The spot-a-ton! Asian Cougar & Palomino vs. Akinori Tsukioka & Kyohei Mikami. Match contains half a dozen leg drop variants and half a dozen tope atomicos! They hit ALL the spots. Match is actually fairly competitive. Palomino, the masked Ikuto Hidaka, looks ultra polished working pseudo lucha exchanges. Tsukioka lands an Asai Moonsault into nowhere! Swank moves and dives are rolled out. An almost unrecognizable Mikami hits the neat-o Victory Roll into Kneebar because that was en vogue in 1998. Tsukioka does another insane thing which the camera misses completely! They go BROADWAY (but we will never get the full experience, because they clipped a few minutes from the bout.) This match was praised in an old DVDVR and is still fun today. Manly and whip ass etc. The girl match! Emi Motokawa & Sumie Sakai (Jd') & Sachie Nishibori vs. Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi & Miho Wakizawa. It's somewhat light hearted and also mayhem! They do all the moves. The AJW girls don't look good! Neither does Motokawa. Sakai tries a moonsault off the top to the outside and NOBODY catches her at all! The announcer calls it a „Flying Sausage“ everytime a chubby wrestler attempts a flying bodypress. Nishibori hits some nice flying headscissors, but probably isn't polished at anything else. They already had the foxy S&M valet earlier, why have this match be overly cute? Bring back Chiharu Nakano. The sleazeball fest! Keizo Matsuda & The Great Takeru vs. Masao Orihara & Takeshi Ono. The Not So Great Takeru is in his goofy Power Rangers costume! Masao Orihara & Takeshi Ono are the Tonpachi Machine Guns, and they will kick you in the balls a LOT. Takeshi Ono actually works STIFF. Golly gee he is roughing up those IWA Japan dudes. The Machine Guns are slick and sloppy at the same time, if that makes sense. This was mostly an extended squash for the guns, which is a good thing, because Takeru ain't so great, and Matsuda with his wrestling school level leg drops is laughable. Takeru atleast lays in his spin kicks and hits a moonsault kneedrop. Orihara hits the stupidly gorgeous Orihara moonsault to the outside following a spider german suplex to make up for all the horrible moonsault awrygoings of the evening. Likely the classiest thing he's ever done. The crusty main event! Great Kabuki & Kendo Nagasaki vs. Shigeo Okumura & Keisuke Yamada. Kabuki train 98 continues! Everyone in this match gets WALLOPED and it rules. Yamada & Okumura get all uppity and Nagasaki fucking wastes them both with chairs. Kabuki & Nagasaki turn into the worlds lumpiest Anderson brothers and procure some brutal armwork and stomps, with Nagasaki rocking the shoulder dislocating Armbars. It's improbable and strange and great. Kabuki hits his awesome fist drop and starts working the ARMPIT CLAW and it's fucking gross. Okumura & Yamada are not technically great but they are willing to smack the shit out of the crusty old bastards and in return get punched in the face, elbowed in the chin and kicked in the throat a LOT. Kabuki & Nagasaki actually have enough cardio to keep things moving for 15 minutes and we get a handful of great spots and thrust kicks. FEAR THE GREEN MIST! Also, SICK piledriver finish. I loved this.
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I am not overly familiar with Cooga's career, but I assume this is likely her career match thanks to Jaguar Yokota. Yokota may be old enough to be Cooga's mother, but totally smoked her during the sprint portion of this match. In a lucky moment Cooga land an abisegiri to Yokota's knee which is a totally stealworthy transition. Cooga proceeds to tear up her leg including ramming her with chairs. Yokota's selling was world class and her knee was even bloodied which is something I've never seen in any other match. Yokota kept stumbling and hobbling even while irish whipped and failed to hit her fisherman buster in another great spot which lead to Cooga planting her with some sick DDTs which Yokota sold by spiking herself on her head. Another great spot saw Cooga catching her with another nasty abisegiri to maintain control. I'm annoyed they clipped 4 minutes from this but the clipping was seamless and the match was a great mini junior epic.
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This may take the cake as the most overrated match of 1998, but it's still good enough to make a Top 100. Wagner Jr. utterly dominating Kanemoto was highly entertaining and saved the match from being your typical ridiculous junior affair. He also showed good sense on how to progress the match. I loved how he threw Kanemoto over the top rope like a piece of shit and then chucked a chair in his face. Unfortunately, the transitions and cut offs weren't quite up to snuff. Not much difference between this and joshi, honestly. Both guys were eager to just hit their moves. Thankfully, they remembered how to sell in the last 3rd which saved the finishing run from becoming a complete farce.
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The opening matwork may have been filler, but I still prefer these guys working amateur exchanges and fighting for armlocks over the usual sprint opening. This was, once again, a long, solid match, which I easily enjoyed more than any long AJPW match up to this point. The fighting spirit/no selling shit was also less prevalent. Enjoyed how Kobashi controlled early on with nasty neck cranks etc only for Kawada to start slowly getting the better and using him as a kicking bag. Lots of violent neck chops and boots to the face ensue. They dish out some insane punishment, to the point where the finishing run came across as chaotic messy. Once again I thought the match should've ended like 5-10 minutes earlier, but there was nothing egregious about it. Both guys had some crazy selling. Kawada doing his stumbling around then hit a kick to the face is like the only guy who can do that. So yeah, long, excellently worked, crazy crazy match. I don't mind there being not an epic story, but I thought the match inevitably lacked urgency as opposed to Hashimoto/Fujinami.
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Not as great as their match earlier in the year, but still a pretty good showing. Some nasty work on Ace's neck early on, with Kawada working some nice snug sleeper holds and what not. Some nice more-pissed-off-than-usual stiff exchanges between Kobashi and Kawada ensue, and they tease a big spot from their previous match. Kobashi using the guardrail to soften up Taue's leg was unexpected and nasty, and Ace brings the US style work with some nice looking elbows to the thigh. Unfortunately, the legwork ends up being meaningless heatless filler (gee what's up with every 98 AJPW match having a pointless Figure 4 spot in the middle of it?). The finishing run was as big and dumb as a finishing run can get, but had plenty of fun moments. I expected Kobashi come out and assert himself because he was facing Kawada for the Triple Crown soon, but instead they just destroyed him and it was awesome. Flawed match, but brownie points for having a 30 minute long All Japan match that didn't bore me to tears.
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CM Punk is also a blue belt, supposedly...